Again he froze. Had he imagined it? He hadn’t actually seen them move, but he had heard them stir on their ancient iron rollers. A trick of the acoustics down here. He waited, and then remembered to breathe. He stared at the doors. Another boom of thunder, the sensation of movement, a slight pressure in his ears, and, yes, by God, the door moved. Less than a fraction of an inch. Air pressure. Somehow, the storm was modulating the air pressure down here, and the doors, being at the end of a tunnel, were being affected. While his logical brain worked that out, his lizard brain was beginning to sound a repeating refrain: Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Great damned idea, he thought, and, dropping the air hose, he started back up the tunnel.
Another thump and boom from the storm up above, and the answering veil of mortar dust streamed out of the arched ceiling.
I will not run. I will walk. If I run, my footfalls could disturb the brickwork even more.
I will not run.
But I can trot. Or do a fast shuffle, maybe?
And he did, keeping his footfalls minimized, trying not to make any big vibrations, wiping the perspiration off his face and realizing it was gritty, fixing his eyes on the beam of white light ahead of him as he followed it back up to the intersection. He was terribly aware of the tunnel roof right above his head, and he stepped out and picked up the pace. Eighty feet from the entrance, he heard a crack from the brickwork, somewhere behind him. I will not run. I will not run.
A moment later, he bounded up the steps past the two crewmen who were watching with knowing grins. A boom of thunder let go that sounded as if it had gone off down here in the main tunnel, but the sound was obviously just coming down from the various gratings in all its beautiful fury.
“All done today?” the older of the PWC guys asked him as the other one began to crank on the reel of the air hose. “Look a little white around the gills.”
Jim wiped his face and saw that his entire hand was white. “That thunder was starting to move shit around down there. Scared my ass.”
“Yeah, it does that. Compresses the air. You were at the end of the pipe. It’s interesting shit.”
“That’s one word for it,” Jim said, and all three laughed.
“At least you didn’t rabbit. We had the PWC officer himself back there, Captain Johnson? Same thing happened. He damn near went over the crew’s backs to get out of there.”
“Wasn’t like I didn’t want to,” Jim said. “I was afraid of making vibrations.”
“You ought to try it when there’s a storm out on the bay and we get big waves. The waves hit the seawall out on Farragut Field. That’s all packed landfill, you know, rammed earth. Transmits the vibrations back into the Fort Severn foundations. That’s really interesting. Sure you don’t wanna go down this other tunnel?”
Another boom of thunder bellowed down the concrete walls. “All the same to you,” said Jim, and the guy nodded. Jim asked if he could help with the cable reel, but they thanked him and said no. Then he asked why PWC didn’t just fill these death traps in.
“Money,” the man said. “They shoulda done it a hundred years ago, but there you are. Army then, you know. Army does everything half-ass.”
Jim thanked them again and headed for the surface, forcing himself to walk through the tunnel at a normal pace. When he reached the Stribling Walk access doors, he could hear rain streaming down the steps. There was a more pronounced gurgle under the steel deck plates out in the middle of the tunnel floor. He decided to wait it out.
So what had he learned? That he was scared of underground chambers. Okay. But why had there been scratches on the lock, and why had they been covered up? His runner take a tour one night and have the same reaction? He should have gone down that other tunnel while it was open. He knew they wouldn’t open it again anytime soon. But there was just no way. When that huge damned door moved, it had taken all his self-control not to drop that air hose and just bolt.
A small tingle at the back of his brain told him he was missing something here. He tried to think. Shit. He realized he should go back down there right now and explore that second tunnel. He wouldn’t get another chance unless some really hard evidence precipitated opening up and gas-freeing the complex again.
Another clap of thunder blasted seemingly right above his head, rattling the steel door and the gratings above. He felt the pressure in his ears and thought he saw the overhead lights sway.
Go back down there? Screw that noise.
Branner called Jim after lunch and asked if he could come up to the NCIS office to meet someone. There had been a staff meeting called for 1400, which Jim was more than pleased to skip, so he said he’d be right over. There was still intense media pressure relating to the Dell case, and the commandant was all over the Public Affairs office to control the spin. The Yard police had caught a television crew from CBS national news hawking the Nimitz Library steps, trying for interviews with midshipmen. The mids had turned them in immediately.
“Mr. Hall, this is Mr. Harry Chang,” Branner said, making introductions in the conference room. “Mr. Chang, this is Mr. Jim Hall, Naval Academy security officer.”
Jim almost did a double take. Harry Chang appeared to be a clone of Mao Tse-tung. The same broad, round face, thickset body, thinning grayish black hair, and black eyes gleaming with wily intelligence. He grinned when he saw the look on Jim’s face. “Scary, isn’t it?” he said, shaking hands.
“Mr. Chairman” was all Jim could manage, and Chang laughed out loud. “See?” he said to Branner. Then to Jim: “I understand you were a Marine?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said, wondering if he was going to get another query about what he was doing here in the security officer job.
“I was, too,” Chang said, gesturing for everyone to sit down. “Enlisted. Intel specialist. Four years. Saw some interesting times in Nam. But that was thirty years ago or thereabouts. I joined up with NCIS when it was still called NIS.”
“Mr. Chang is from headquarters,” Branner said. “He’s a homicide specialist. Actually, I should say he is the homicide specialist.”
“Actually, I happened to be the homicide specialist who zigged instead of zagged when Agent Branner called in yesterday,” Chang said with an easy smile. “Our senior directing staff told me to butt in.”
“I briefed him on what we’ve done up to now,” Branner said. Jim noted her choice of “we” and wondered how that sat with the senior NCIS people.
“She said you proposed an interesting theory of the case, Mr. Hall,” Chang said. “Could I hear it in your own words?”
Apparently, his participation in the NCIS investigation didn’t bother their headquarters people. Jim nodded and went through it again, saying that maybe what had happened to Dell was incidental to something aimed at Midshipman Markham. Chang stared at him the whole time he was talking. His expression revealed absolutely nothing.
“As Agent Branner here observed,” Jim concluded, “that would mean we might be dealing with a sociopath, if not a psychopath. A midshipman, in all probability.”
“A psychopath at the Naval Academy,” Chang said. “That raises all sorts of interesting problems, does it not?”
“Got that right,” Jim said. “The Dell case. The system here. The admissions process. If I’m right, it’s not going to be a very popular theory.”
Chang nodded emphatically. “Our brief,” he said, “is to pull the string on the possibility that what happened to Midshipman Brian Dell was a homicide. The emphasis coming from our overseers is to dis prove homicide. Then maybe the current media circus can be damped down somewhat.”
“That’s coming from the supe?”
“That’s coming from the SecNav. Or so I’ve been told.”
Jim considered this news. If the SecNav’s office was involved in this case, then the stakes were considerably higher than he had thought. “Hell, it’s just a theory,” he said.
“And now you’re feeling like the messenger who’s set himself up for a shooting,” Chang replied.